When you visit Rome, make sure you walk by the Roman Forum at night: the new lighting system designed by Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro and his daughter Francesca was inaugurated to celebrate 2000 since the death of the Emperor Augustus in 14AD! It was a double celebration, as the lights went on, on the 21st of April, 2014, to also celebrate Rome’s 2767th birthday.

The lighting system encompasses the forums of Augustus, Nerva and Trajan and has been described as a “wave of light rising from the Earth, wrapping the Temple of Mars Ultor with great intensity and then, gradually attenuating, rising from the bottom to the top to embrace the entire perimeter of the wall that delineates the Forum of Augustus”.

Illuminated night walks through the Forum of Caesar and parts of the Imperial Fora are also planned, included films and virtual reconstructions projected onto the existing ruins to help visitors experience how the ancient sites once looked.

The Mayor of Rome, Marino, noted that the Augustus presentation drew some 110,000 visitors last summer.

Meanwhile, at the Temple of Peace authorities say that two of its seven restored columns will be visible to the public in time for Rome’s birthday celebration. The columns, made of pink granite from Aswan, Egypt, were restored from fragments recovered during excavations in 1998-2000.

A second phase of the project will see the restoration of a five-square-metre section of the temple’s portico roof, with original tiles that were found intact.

The restoration work will bring to life a part of the Temple of Peace that was visible to Romans in 75 A.D., when the Emperor Vespasian had the Temple built to celebrate the conquest of Jerusalem.What remains of the Temple of Peace, sometimes known as the Forum of Peace, now rests in the present Roman Forum near Largo Corrado Ricci.

One of its original walls has been incorporated into the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the Roman Forum, where holes can stil be seen that were once used to affix a marble map of ancient Rome that dated from the third century AD. The restoration work will help to shed light for visitors on another element of Rome’s history for visitors.

Excavation of the area dates back to the 1930’s, when the Fascist administration of Mussolini constructed the modern Via Fori Imperiali that cut through the Imperial Fora, leaving the fora of Augustus, Nerva and Trajan on one side, with the Forum of Caesar and the Roman Forum on the other.

To get a glimpse into the magic of the Roman Forum at night, book a tour with Italy’s Best!